


YEAR 95, VERY FAR TO THE SOUTH

by Tanist



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 13:40:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13571721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tanist/pseuds/Tanist
Summary: The crew makes it to the Bass Strait Islands of Tasmania (the big island south of Australia). This was written as a Yule gift for Origami Owl. The strange words are the terms, in one of the Aboriginal languages, for trolls, giants and something rather like the elves of European traditions. Set five years in the future of Minna's story. The crew are all there, though only Lalli is mentioned by name. The viewpoint character is a Furneaux Islander, a mage-scout coast-watcher who is the first to meet them.





	YEAR 95, VERY FAR TO THE SOUTH

A YULE GIFT FOR ORIGAMI OWL

YEAR 95, VERY FAR TO THE SOUTH

I’ve put the billy on to boil. You sit  
And rest awhile beside my beacon fire.  
You’ve made a mighty journey, all the way  
To the most distant South. End of the world  
Down here, they used to say, my grandpa told  
Us kids, when we would pester him for tales   
About the olden days, before the Rash….  
He’s gone now, brave old man, tough as a boot  
He was, him and his crew of Islanders.  
Them in their patched-up whaleboat, hunting down  
Leviathans with magic and harpoons  
Or beaching them among the island shoals.   
They kept the Furneaux Islands safe for years…..

It was the moonbirds saved us, and the quolls.  
The stubborn Islanders, the tiger snakes  
The cliffs and precipices had a part….  
But most of all, the winds. The Roaring Forties  
Spinning their furious circuit round the Pole,  
Freezing the air and water, raising waves  
To wreck the monsters on our jagged cliffs  
Or drive them to their deaths on Southern ice……

  
The early days were hard, he used to say.  
So many monsters on the sea and land:  
Tebwem, you call them trolls; pioial, your giants.  
The radio channels crackling into silence  
Or full of voices screaming, which was worse.  
And over all the sickness, warping minds  
And twisting bodies into monstrous things…

We’d have been lost, but the land sent us aid.  
One marngit in a leaky old canoe:  
Him the whale-mages sang across the Bight  
To rouse the land that helped us all survive.  
He sang the Nangina out of the rocks,  
Out of the forests where they’d gone to fade.  
He called them back to help us one more time….  
You, mage, young Lalli, go and talk to them.  
They’ve watched you from the rocks this last half hour.  
I reckon they’ll be glad to have a yarn  
And hear your news about their Northern kin -  
Don’t worry, lad, they’re just as shy as you….

The billy’s boiling. How about that tea?

**Author's Note:**

> There will be more of this, as well as other tales, and the continuation of 'A Few of Mikkel's Secrets', as I gradually retrieve such stories as I have tracked down, or have rewritten from memory, in the aftermath of the Great Pages Crash. Many thanks to those who had copies of my lost stories and poems, and have got them back to me, especially Wavewright, Fíona, Julianne and my beloved Star.


End file.
